Humanity's Next Step, Part Four: Togetherness

The last part of this series was about autonomy. This one is
about togetherness. How on Earth does autonomy lead to togetherness?

Chaos is
Simplicity

Systems that appear to be chaotic can actually be quite
simple. Likewise, systems that attempt to be simple can end up being wildly
overcomplicated.

A system that allows for each part to be autonomous is
essentially inviting chaos. There’s no overlord at the top of the system making
rules and forcing each piece of the system to behave a certain way. Instead,
the pieces govern themselves. You’d think it would follow, then, that the
system is bound to be terribly overcomplicated, and it is unlikely to produce
much of value.

On the other hand, a system that controls each of its parts
demands order. It would seem obvious that such a system would be simple and
straightforward. The system says, Here
are the rules, and here are the results we desire to produce via these rules.
Now follow them.

The reality of these systems is counter-intuitive. The
autonomy-based system is actually the simple, elegant one, and the
control-based system turns out to be the complex, clunky one.

Here’s an example. I write in a “Write first, organize later”
style. This is basically the opposite of the way I was taught to write in school,
which was to create an outline that organized the different parts of the essay.
The point was to plan first, and then write within the constraints set up in
the outline.

These days I write on the fly and create subtitles for each
section of the article later. In general, I don’t need to do much editing at
all, and it’s not often that I have to change around the order of different
parts of the article. Typically the article comes out well-ordered. If I do
have to change around the structure of an article, I often do it while I’m in
the middle of writing it. While this does require a bit of thought, it still
feels relatively automatic: I don’t do this in an incredibly plodding or
overly-cranial fashion. I just shoot for flow throughout the article.

This may sound like a relatively disorderly writing process.
That’s because it is. However, the end product of this process is a well-ordered,
coherent article.

Of course, even the larger process of how I go about
improving my writing is rather without order. I just write, edit, share, and
then write the next thing. I don’t get a coherent article 100% of the time, but
I generally do decently, and sometimes I do pretty damn good. It’s a relatively
uncontrolled process, but on the whole it is an elegant system because it
produces the result I want: a trend of continual improvement.

What I like about relatively-uncontrolled systems like this
is that they have greater freedom to adapt to reality. If I planned out each of
my writing topics, say, weeks or months in advance, I might not feel quite as
enthusiastic about a particular topic when the time came to write about it. Not
only that, but the writing piece might not resonate quite as well with what’s
going on in my reality.

I wouldn’t say that I’m reactive, but rather that I ride the
wave that is right in front of me. Sometimes I do a bit of pre-planning, but it’s
usually quick and only when the project is right on my doorstep. If planning
helps me to ride the wave, then I do it. When I feel that planning will only
get in the way of the wave, then I allow spontaneity to fill in the empty
space. In general, as long as there is a little bit of underlying structure
(such as a general purpose that drives my work)- but certainly not a whole lot-
spontaneity does a pretty good job.

This is how autonomy lends itself to togetherness. On a
micro-level my writing seems somewhat chaotic and it is indeed spontaneous. On
a macro-level, however, fast forward 200+ articles and several books and I have
a coherent body of work. Each piece in that body of work strengthens and helps
to clarify the others. Not only that, but each piece of the system is reliant
upon all the others that came before it—otherwise I might not have developed
the ideas necessary to create that particular piece. Likewise, each piece is
reliant upon all the others that come after it, because each new piece makes the
one that came before it that much more substantial and meaningful.

Freedom is
Love

The more we run our lives autonomously, living and working
on our own terms, the more we enable ourselves to unite, to give to each other,
and love each other. How can this be?

Imagine that you are the only human on Earth. A lot of silliness
that you know of in our current world would immediately fall away. You’d have
no such thing as a reputation. You’d have no one to appease, please, or
impress. There would be no one who could hurt you, nor would you have anyone to
compete with. There would be very little to keep you from being yourself
freely.

Now, imagine that every person lived as though they were the
only person on Earth—except, they agreed to do so together.

I’m writing this piece as though I’m the only person on Earth
because otherwise fears and doubts and ideas that don’t resonate with this
piece start to creep in. At first thought, you might imagine that writing in
such a way would produce something horribly dysfunctional and inaccurate. But,
just like with the uncontrolled system, in the end I produce a coherent
article.

I don’t need someone to tell me what to say. I don’t need
someone to command me in order to generate something of value. I’m just doing
what I naturally desire to do right now. My life doesn’t depend on it, and no
one instructed me to do it. My work is an uncontrolled system. Yet, I will say
it again—the end product is not only coherent, but potentially valuable. And I
didn’t need to exercise some gargantuan amount of self-control in order to do
that. I don’t have a rule book laid out on my desk that’s open to page 303 to
make sure that I don’t break that rule
ohmygod. I do have certain ways that I like to do things, but I just keep
track of those in my mind. It’s automatic. The system doesn’t need to be
controlled: it just works.

Think about it: do you need someone to tell you how to have
sex? Do you need to be controlled? Maybe if you’re the submissive type, but
that’s beside the point here.

Did someone instruct you on how to fall in love? Did anyone
command you to do it? My goodness, if that was the case you would find yourself
in an abusive relationship.

Love cannot be controlled. Love is freedom. Love between two people is a disorderly
system, run by two autonomous parts. And what is the end result? Where there is
genuine love, the end product is music, you might say. Growth occurs.
Friendship unfolds. Sharing happens. Beauty is created. And no control needed
to be imposed upon the parts: they simply did as they naturally desired to do.

I don’t need to explain this to you. You know that you don’t
need instructions on how to love another person. The best way to love someone
else is to respect yourself by expressing yourself freely.

Why is this? If you inject control into a system, the whole system is affected. It cannot be
any other way, because the system as a whole is a single entity.

So, if I start to exercise control over myself, that will
inevitably affect you. The internal conflict that is inevitable when a person
feels she needs to control herself will make its way to you, somehow. It will
contaminate our relationship. It will make things more difficult between us. It
will be harder to communicate. And if I hold myself back, that also means that
I hold back my ability to love, because the only thing love requires is
freedom. Therefore, to the extent to which I either am not autonomous or don’t
trust myself to be autonomous, I reduce my ability to love.

A person’s ability to love is directly proportional to the degree
of freedom which they experience. When you feel free, you can love easily. Love
is your natural state. If you feel trapped, however, you cannot simultaneously
feel joyful, nor are you likely to think much of sharing and caring and free
self-expression and whatnot.

In the end, the extent of freedom you experience is all a
matter of choice: after all, if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t really be freedom, would
it? Still, the point remains: in any system or piece thereof, the amount of
freedom is the same as the amount of love.

So, when people are living and working autonomously, they
will experience freedom, and from this place of freedom they will naturally
orient their work in a way that benefits others—much like I am doing here, with
this article. Not only that, but people will be joyful enough that they won’t
feel any need to put down others in any way. When everyone is benefitting from
one another as a result of attending to meaningful tasks they chose to do
themselves, there is virtually no economic competition. Where there is no
competition, and there instead is abundance, people don’t need to be “kept safe”
from one another anymore, because there is no longer a reason for danger.

Think about it: if everyone experienced having everything
that they want, would anyone do harm to anybody? No. People attack as a means
of defense. People lash out when they experience themselves as lacking
something. Anger arises from a sense of powerlessness. If we eliminate the
powerlessness that results from a lack of autonomy, and subsequently eliminate
the sense of lack that results from separation and competition, what reason
will people have to attack one another anymore? I simply cannot think of one.

The Call to
Action: Listen and Trust

As for our current situation, I think Donald Trump being
president will ultimately lead us to greater unity. The concerns people have
expressed about their fellow Americans being somehow hurt are a sign of this.
On top of this, the voices of people who have often felt unheard (i.e.
working-class people and people in the Midwest) are now being heard, at least
indirectly, via Trump’s victory.

What we have to do now is recognize that we all are desiring
to be heard. It’s not only the government that we want to be heard by, however—we
want to be heard by each other. If we were to all tune in and listen we would
find our problems greatly diminished, because many of the problems our nation
is experiencing arise from separation between and distrust of one another. As
more people steadily choose to conduct themselves intelligently and express
themselves freely, we will find that we are readily able to address one another’s
concerns and beyond.

If we are to experience togetherness, we must first trust
ourselves enough to be autonomous. We must cease to control and command one
another. Once we do that, we can cooperate to create the conscious, abundant
world that we desire and know we are capable of creating.

Trust yourself, and watch yourself soar. You might just help
to bring people together.